In Ontario, which goes to the polls on Thursday, Premier Kathleen Wynne has committed to balancing the budget by 2017-18. With the deficit rising to $12.5-billion this year, any such effort will require a number of potentially controversial and disruptive policy choices. Yet to date, Kathleen Wynne has been vague about these choices and policy prescriptions, preferring to attack opposition leader Tim Hudak’s Conservative plan to balance the budget 12 months earlier. During the recent televised debate, she was unwilling to articulate even a basic outline of how she planned to implement her own plan.

The high-level numbers in Ms. Wynne’s budget give hints as to how far-reaching Kathleen Wynne’s deficit reduction plan will have to be. According to the Liberals, reducing the deficit would require effectively freezing program spending for the next four years, a feat that never has been accomplished in modern Ontario history. Moreover, because health, education and social services are off limits politically, every other ministry will have to cut collectively at least $3-billion or 6% in spending to 2017-18. This represents a significant reduction to ministries such as infrastructure, natural resources, aboriginal affairs and agriculture and rural affairs. Given that human resources represents 55% of program spending, and the effects of inflation, the government will have to take aggressively austere measures on government jobs to meet the 2017-18 targets.

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A recently released confidential briefing prepared in early 2013 by top civil servants for cabinet provides some of the clarity that Ms. Wynne seeks to avoid. The province is “accumulating debt on top of an already heavy burden”; and for the extended fiscal projections, “neither sector targets nor plans exist.” The level of spending would have to “decrease dramatically.” In real terms, many ministries will face “negative” spending (a euphemism for cuts). The plan “assumes that in order to balance [the budget], program spending would be reduced by about $1,000 — or 12% — in real per-capita terms … No other Canadian jurisdiction projects a decline in real per capita program expense of [this] magnitude.”

Instead of trying to win a mandate to implement her massive programs of cuts, Kathleen Wynne has chosen to ignore the issue while adding several billion dollars worth of new spending commitments — as well as massive new schemes such as a provincial pension plan and the perennial Liberal favorite, high-speed rail. She is giving the impression that she will not be hiking taxes, cutting spending on services, or laying off public-sector workers. Either she is not being honest, or she is not being serious about her commitments.

These attacks from Wynne have become increasingly marked by a tone of fear and loathing

Kathleen Wynne continues to attack Conservative leader Tim Hudak for being honest about how he will balance the budget. As the election campaign comes to a close, these attacks from Wynne have become increasingly marked by a tone of fear and loathing.

If Kathleen Wynne had shown leadership, she would have levelled with the unions supporting her, and been clear that she is seeking a mandate to balance the budget that will require wage freezes and layoffs. If this is not the case, she should have let Ontarian’s know by how much she plans to raise taxes to meet her budget goals.

Tim Hudak should be commended for being upfront about his plans. Ontario deserves better leadership than Wynne is providing.

National Post

J.C. Bourque is a business strategy consultant in Toronto at StrategyCorp. He has worked on several campaigns for the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario and is a lecturer at the University of Toronto.

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